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Daily Archives: March 4, 2012

Fifty years ago, in 1962, Rachel Carson published her landmark and highly influential book, Silent Spring. According to Wikipedia,

Rachel Louise Carson (May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964) was an American marine biologist and conservationist whose writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement. Carson began her career as a biologist in the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, and became a full-time nature writer in the 1950s. Her widely praised 1951 bestseller The Sea Around Us won her financial security and recognition as a gifted writer. Her next book, The Edge of the Sea, and the republished version of her first book, Under the Sea Wind, were also bestsellers. Together, her sea trilogy explores the whole of ocean life, from the shores to the surface to the deep sea. In the late 1950s, Carson turned her attention to conservation and the environmental problems caused by synthetic pesticides. The result was Silent Spring (1962), which brought environmental concerns to an unprecedented portion of the American public. Silent Spring, while met with fierce denial from chemical companies, spurred a reversal in national pesticide policy—leading to a nationwide ban on DDT and other pesticides—and the grassroots environmental movement the book inspired led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency

What follows is chapter two from Silent Spring. It is still meaningful and relevant today, 50 years after it was published.

THE HISTORY OF LIFE on earth has been a history of interaction between living things and their surroundings. To a large extent, the physical form and the habits of the earth’s vegetation and its animal life have been molded by the environment. Considering the whole span of earthly time, the opposite effect, in which life actually modifies its surroundings, has been relatively slight. Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species — man — acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world. Continue reading →

Originally posted on wine predator: Here’s why. Congress is considering two major bills. The USA Freedom Act curtails NSA surveillance abuses. The FISA Improvements Act attempts to legalize bulk data collection of phone records. We need to tell Congress to pass the USA Freedom Act and amend it to make it even stronger. Here’s how.…

Originally posted on art predator: The 20th Anniversary of the 3:15 Experiment (Note: Last summer my doctoral fieldwork was on the 3:15 Experiment; below is one of the papers I wrote on the topic illustrated with some of my 3:15 poems that were published in ArtLife Limited Editions. This year, my fieldwork is on Burning…

Originally posted on wine predator: I’m a seasoned writer and wine blogger, about to hit 300 blog posts over here on Wine Predator (and 1300 on Art Predator!), but even if you’re a beginning wine blogger, with only a few blog posts and wine samples under your belt, you can probably relate to this Writers…

Originally posted on whisper down the write alley: Actually there is nothing wrong with the picture–but there is a lot wrong with the text! What do you think this gallery is trying to say? How would YOU revise this text? Please comment and leave a link to your blog! Only 15 days left to apply…. …